Sunday, October 12, 2014

Liberals are waking up. At least, some of them are. Even
some feminists are appalled to see men being denied due process of
law, losing the rights that would be theirs in the American criminal justice
system.

After all, some feminists have sons. They refuse to allow
their sons to be railroaded by a kangaroo court. They see that the new way that colleges and
universities are dealing with accusations of sexual assault deprives the
accused of the right to a trial.

One feminist public defender, Robin Steinberg declared,
after examining the new Columbia University policy for dealing with the
problem: “We are never sending our sons to college.”

Writing in the venerable liberal magazine, The New Republic,
Judith Shulevitz explains how justice is being denied and perverted in America.

The victims of injustice are male college students accused
of rape.

Who is responsible for this perversion of justice?

The government, who else. Through the Department of Education’s Office
of Civil Rights it has told universities to
draw up new ways to deal with charges of sexual assault. Since the criminal
justice system does not always arrive at the conclusion that radical feminists
want, these latter have happily used government regulation to force universities
to create kangaroo courts that fulfill their radical wishes.

Shulevitz explains:

What’s
happening at universities represents an often necessary effort to recategorize
once-acceptable behaviors as unacceptable. But the government, via Title IX, is
effectively acting on the notion popularized in the 1970s and ’80s by Andrea
Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon that male domination is so pervasive that women
need special protection from the rigors of the law. Men, as a class, have more
power than women, but American law rests on the principle that individuals have
rights even when accused of doing bad things. And American liberalism has long
rejected the notion that those rights may be curtailed even for a noble cause.
“We need to take into account our obligations to due process not because we are
soft on rapists and other exploiters of women,” says [Harvard professor Janet] Halley,
but because “the danger of holding an innocent person responsible is real.”

Here is what happens when the accused loses his due
process rights:

Most
colleges that do allow lawyers into sexual-misconduct hearings or
interrogations do not permit them to speak, though they may pass notes.
Students on both sides must speak for themselves. This presents a serious
problem for a young man charged with rape (and in the vast majority of campus
cases, the accused are men). On one hand, if he doesn’t defend himself, he’ll
be at a disadvantage. On the other, if he is also caught up in a criminal case,
anything he says in a campus procedure can be used against him in court.
Neither side may cross-examine witnesses to establish contradictions in their
testimony. A school may withhold the identity of an accuser from the accused if
she requests anonymity (though it may choose not to). Guilt or innocence hinges
on a “preponderance” of evidence, a far lower standard than the “beyond a
reasonable doubt” test that prevails in courtrooms. At Harvard, the Title IX
enforcement office acts as cop, prosecutor, judge, and jury—and also hears the
appeals. This conflation of possibly conflicting roles is “fundamentally not
due process,” says Janet Halley, a Harvard Law School professor whose areas of
expertise include feminist legal theory and procedural law.

How did the bureaucracy engineer this perversion of justice?

Shulevitz explains:

How did
this shadow judicial system become the norm on college campuses? Don’t blame
universities entirely. In 1997, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for
Civil Rights (OCR) started telling colleges how to handle sexual-misconduct
cases, resting its authority on Title IX, the 1972 law prohibiting
discrimination on the basis of gender. (Students have always been able to file
police charges.) Since then, the government has issued many guidances and
revisions; Congress has passed bills. The clarification that did most to change
schools’ approach to misconduct was the “Dear Colleague” letter of 2011. Among
other things, this document requested schools to lower their standard of proof
and to conclude all proceedings swiftly, apparently without regard for the
timing of any criminal investigation. If a school violates any of the many
rules or recommendations, OCR may put it on the list of 84 colleges under
investigation, a public-relations disaster. OCR could also disqualify it from
receiving federal funding, which could mean shutting it down.

You might believe that universities are being nudged to do
the right thing. In fact, they are being threatened by a government agency: do
what we want or have your reputation destroyed.

And you were wondering why people are appalled by the
excesses of big government.

One suspects that schools are ill-prepared to deal with accusations
of felonious activity. Fair enough. That is not their business. That is not
their skill set.

And yet, suspending due process because you do not like the
way trials unfold is an abridgment of constitutional rights.

As a result, we have seen a proliferation of lawsuits filed
by young men subjected to this extra-judicial harassment:

There
is no question that many women who have made accusations of rape or assault
have been shockingly mistreated by their schools. But since the “Dear Colleague”
letter, more than 20 lawsuits have been filed against colleges by men punished
for sexual misconduct, and lawyers believe there will be many more such
lawsuits in the next few months. In some of these cases, the facts are too
messy to be shoehorned into the master narrative of predators and victims that
dominates discussions of campus sexual assault.

Like Camille Paglia before her, Judith Shulevitz sees that
the reality of campus sex is far more complicated than the “master narrative.”

It is important to emphasize that feminism, like any
ideology, is idea-driven, not fact-driven. It has chosen a narrative wherein
men are predators and women are victims. It only acknowledges as fact
information that affirms the truth of the narrative.

As you know, many conservatives have been protesting these
extra-judiciary procedures for some time now. Perhaps now that liberals and
feminists are noticing that their own sons are at risk of losing their constitutional rights, the subject might be taken more
seriously.

Feminists are willing to go to the barricades to protect
what they see as the constitutional right to abortion on demand but are
perfectly willing to suspend the right of due process for a man who is accused
of sexual assault.

Again, this is driven by a master narrative, not by facts or
even truth.

6 comments:

re: [Feminism] has chosen a narrative wherein men are predators and women are victims.

I've identified this pattern too, but it is subtle and hard to break through, and the college "kangaroo courts" is one way I think.

In the modern dating/hookup world, no-means-no, and yes-until-I-changed-my-mind-tomorrow also means no, so even if a man got a signed contract with a woman's explicit yes, he can be charged with rape, and is guilty until proven innocent. Afterall, she could still say no after writing her yes, or claim she did, I mean she could "feel" that she did say no, in her heart or something.

I agree it does almost seem like revenge against a whole gender, and in the case of colleges, we could be bold and consider its a good think. I mean if the hookup culture is so harmful to women, then having college age men terrified of women, perhaps it will "dry up" all the sexual activity on campus?

Okay, probably not, but if you're going to have kangaroo courts, I guess colleges are good place for them, as long as the guilty-until-proven-innocent process doesn't move to civil courts.

But back to colleges, why not just say FORNICATION on campuses is illegal, and 100% MENS responsibilty, and they'll be kicked out of school. Women however will get to stay, because they can keep trying to lure more men into sin, so the bad boys can be weeded out and punished with minimum wage jobs for life.

At least that might be a more honest policy that what we have now. Men would know what their status is.

What's interesting is there has been EARLY and wide concern over the due process implications of the letter, like this detailed letter:http://www.thefire.org/fire-letter-to-office-for-civil-rights-assistant-secretary-for-civil-rights-russlynn-ali-may-5-2011/"FIRE is still more worried about the impact of OCR’s guidance on students’ right to due process. Indeed, the letter has already prompted several institutions to curtail the procedural due process rights afforded students accused of sexual harassment or sexual violence; given OCR’s regulatory authority and influence, all institutions of higher education accepting federal funding are likely to follow. While it is of course necessary for colleges and universities to address allegations of sexual harassment and sexual violence with all requisite purpose, seriousness, and speed, the rights of those accused cannot be sacrificed simply as a function of the accusation itself."

Note how quickly women come to the aid of a woman in the first case and then the lack of any response from women when the situation is turned around. Not one woman responded which is an indication that they have accepted violence as long as it is against men.Violence is Violence!

I think what feminists are waking up to in this case is that MGTOW awareness has kicked in, and men are -- in meaningful numbers -- starting to seek alternatives to the university gulag. Mean leaving the campus is a canary in the feminist coalmine, and feminists cannot afford to have young men or young women figure out what is going on. (That's why the feminists reacted so aggressively to the WomenAgainstFeminism website.)

The next wave of feminist hegemony requires that men stay engaged with feminism and with institutions designed to control and exploit men. So everywhere we look, we see feminist outreach accompanied by superficially conciliatory posturing, repackaging, reframing, and a calculated, tongue-biting shift away from 40 years of demonizing and abuse directed at men.

IMO, the form that is taking in this instance is try to superficially mitigate some of the most obvious excesses. For strategically-minded feminists, it is much more important to keep men enrolling at universities than it is to get the occasional sexual harassment conviction. Feminists will even tolerate admissions quotas for men to keep the proportion of men from slipping below the 33% tipping point. There's a lot at stake, and the cultural Marxists and their vast matrix of parasitic fellow-travelers know they'll lose massive leverage and financial resources if their academic bastion falls because men make a rational choice to opt out.

The more education becomes a part of the internet the less men have to deal with brick and mortar campuses. This means that more universities will offer courses that men can take without the disruption of women. Feminism in many ways is creating an environment that will lead to forms of attaining degrees that they will not be a part. It is already happening at the K through 12 level and to some extent at the college/university level. Even orals can be accomplished electronically.The end of much of this is not that far in the future. No longer will schools be run by and for women with the subjective judgments that hurt most boys. The electronic marketplace will provide what their consumers require.I am not sure that anything that feminist do will stop the loss of power that they have actually engendered by making academe a dangerous place for men to be a part.Think of the idea of actually teaching males and females in a manner that best suits their learning style instead of one size fits all. In the long run we will be better off because there will be far fewer dysfunctions that are engendered in the current approach to education. I am actually quite optimistic about the possibilities.